Telechelic polymers are polymers with reactive functional groups at the ends of the polymer chains. They generally have relatively low molecular weighte (M.sub.n &lt;5000) and in most cases narrow molecular weight distributions; the nonuniformity M.sub.w /M.sub.n -1 generally ranges from 0 to 3. Telechelic polymers are especially interesting as low-viscosity starting materials for high-molecular-weight linear or cross-linked polymers. However, a broad range of applications for interesting telechelic polymers, for example, those with amino, hydroxy, or carboxyl groups at chain ends, had until now often been precluded by the low economic efficiency of their manufacture.
The end groups of telechelic polymers or their precursors are often formed from constituents of the polymerization initiators employed. Most of the known manufacturing processes demand either high-purity reagents (anionic polymerization, du Pont group-transfer polymerization) or the use of expensive initiators, for example, functionalized azo compounds (cf. BE 768,719).
Also known are processes for the manufacture of telechelic polymers with simple reagents, but these are limited only to a few monomers to be polymerized. For example, the use of hydrogen peroxide as initiator in the manufacture of hydroxytelechelic polymers is limited only to the polymerization of butadiene (Makromolekulare Chemie 183, 303 (1982)) and of acrylates (Makromolekulare Chemie, Rapid Commun. 3, 765 (1982)); Japanese Pat. No. 58 69206, 4/25/83). In this case, complex molecular weight distributions or branched products are also obtained for the most part (Makromolekulare Chemie 183, 2685 (1982)).
Finally, the manufacture of telechelic poly(methyl methacrylates) and polystyrenes by means of simple dithiocarbamate compounds such as tetramethylthiuram disulfide or tetraethylthiuram disulfide as the initiator is also known; this process produces polymers with a dithiocarbamate group at the ends of polymer chains, which is of little interest for broad application (Polymer Bulletin 7, 197 (1982); Makromolekulare Chemie 27, 142 (1958)).